Vivian Shaw
Author of Strange Practice
About the Author
Vivian Shaw was born in Kenya, but lived in England until the age of seven. Her family then moved to the United States. She earned a BA in art history and a MFA in creative writing. Her career has included working in academic publishing and development. She writes fan fiction using the name show more Coldhope. Her novels include Strange Practice, and Dreadful Company, which are books in the Dr. Greta Helsing series. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Publicity photo from author website.
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Works by Vivian Shaw
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Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 20th Century
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Kenya
- Places of residence
- Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
Cardiff, Wales, UK
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK - Relationships
- Martine, Arkady (wife)
- Agent
- Stephen Barbara (InkWell Management)
Steve Fisher (APA)
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Statistics
- Works
- 6
- Also by
- 1
- Members
- 1,528
- Popularity
- #16,836
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 69
- ISBNs
- 33
- Favorited
- 2
First of all, the italics used in the book were just completely out of control. Kinda like in my opening paragraph. The following is an excerpt with italics true to the book. I understand italicizing to emphasize and italicizing to indicate internal thoughts, but this, to me, is excessive. And I swear there is not a single page in this book without two words italicized. I'm not going back and checking though.
"Dools," I say. "I know what has to happen. I know what we have to do."
"What the fuck are you talking about, we," Dooley demands. His voice has a weird wavering high note in it I don't remember hearing before. It's almost interesting , or it would be if I didn't feel so deadly fucking sick and scared and tired.
"Not you," I qualify, thinking again stapled, thinking linked. "But I think I do have to."
"Do what?"
I get it, the italics might be nitpicky. But for me it was just one more issue I had and frankly the easiest and quickest for me to point to in this evolving rant.
A more appropriate criticism and arguably a larger issue (although overusing italics is apparently a trigger for me) is that the narrative voice is annoying. Teal, another reviewer, made the comment "A glib, smart-alecky 1st-person male character who the author tries (but fails) to portray as cool and funny was the default narrator..." and I just can not help but emphasize how much the author failed in the attempt. The narrator wasn't the smart-alecky friend you roll your eyes at. The narrator was the person you stop inviting over because they're so annoyingly not funny (or cool). Is that harsh? That feels harsh. But true.
My last issue is going to be entirely hidden behind spoiler tags because it's a MAJOR SPOILER.